Battle Over Principals in Chicago: Administration vs. Local Councils

At a time when principals are increasingly seen as the point people
for turning around urban schools, the question of who should have the
final say in picking them is no petty issue.

Here in the nation's third-largest school system, it has recently
triggered one of the fiercest exchanges yet in a long-running feud over
how best to reform the schools.

The dispute pits Mayor Richard M. Daley's school management team
against the defenders of local school councils, the parent-dominated
boards that oversee most of the city's 589 public schools. Since the
councils' creation a decade ago under a broad decentralization law,
hiring and firing principals has arguably been their most important
role.

Now, citing abuses at some schools, top district officials want to
check the councils' authority. The idea, they say, is to offer recourse
to principals, parents, and community members in schools where council
members are steered more by personal agendas than educational ones.

"The goal is to get the local school councils to make their
decisions based on the quality of the principal as an academic leader
and a manager," said Paul G. Vallas, the district's chief executive
officer. "I think you can have a balance between local control and
central-office control."

But council leaders and their allies see the plan as the latest
salvo in a campaign to recentralize power by rendering them little more
than paper tigers. Other provisions of the plan would subject council
members to criminal-background checks for the first time, prohibit
felons from serving on councils, and give central administrators
broader authority to oust principals and councils in schools they view
as financially mismanaged.

"What it boils down to is a power grab," said James S. Hammonds, the
executive director of the Chicago Association of Local School Councils.
"This bill is just the first attempt at destroying local school
councils."

Debate Echoed Elsewhere

Friction between forces of centralized and community-based authority
has not been unique to Chicago. As urban districts have struggled to
reconcile these strains, conflict has flared from New York to Los
Angeles and many cities in between.

In this 430,000-student district, the tension has been keen since
the Illinois legislature handed Mr. Daley direct control in 1995.
Groups that played influential roles in crafting the 1988
decentralization law have often clashed with the administration
appointed the mayor, sometimes over moves the reform activists
construed as infringing on the local councils' autonomy.

"This is basically a struggle about how to improve an urban school
system," said Suzanne Davenport, the acting executive director of
Designs for Change, a local school reform group that is often at odds
with the district administration.

Earlier this spring, tempers flared after school officials quietly
advanced their legislative proposal affecting the councils, often known
as LSCs. Following an outcry, the original proposal was toned down. The
plan, which has not formally been introduced as legislation, is pending
before the education committee in the Illinois House.

As it now stands, the proposal would create a three-member panel to
review cases in which councils do not renew the contracts of principals
who have received positive evaluations from district supervisors. After
receiving the new review panel's recommendation, the central school
board would render a final decision on whether the principal should be
retained or dismissed.

The plan would also explicitly prohibit councils from renewing the
contracts of principals who have received poor ratings from district
officials, and revamp the system by which both the councils and
district supervisors evaluate principals. And it would expand the
powers of the city schools chief to name interim principals for up to
two years when councils cannot agree on a candidate.

Split on Accountability

Both sides frame the issue as one of accountability.

The plan's supporters say councils can now jettison principals
without having to defend their actions to the community or the central
office.

"Right now, all they have to say is, 'We want to change,' " said
Beverly Tunney, the president of the Chicago Principals and
Administrators Association, a strong supporter of the administration
plan. "We want to be held accountable but we want it to be fair."

Ms. Tunney said the administration's position arose from frustration
over having no sway over decisions that will shape the public's verdict
on its school improvement efforts.

"It's very difficult to be a CEO over something and the people you
count on the most to make you look good, you have no control over," she
said, referring to Mr. Vallas' situation.

The accountability that administration critics have in mind,
meanwhile, is that of the principal to the local school community. The
net effect of the changes, they say, would be to make principals far
more eager to please the central office than parents or councils.

"We'll be glorified PTAs," said G. Marie Leaner, the vice chairwoman
of the Friedrich I. Jahn School's council, which recently opted against
renewing its principal's four-year contract. Ms. Leaner is also the
coordinator of Chicago's Successful Schools Project, a communications
initiative to publicize school-based improvement efforts.

Council advocates argue that LSC members are accountable at the
ballot box every two years.

"If we as the LSC don't do our job, then don't vote for us," said
Wanda J. Hopkins, a council member who is also a parent trainer for
Parents United for Responsible Education, another local group that
frequently criticizes the administration. Ms. Hopkins spoke last month
at a district-sponsored hearing on the proposal, where supporters of
the measure outnumbered critics by more than 4-to-1.

Plan Called Overkill

Opponents such as Ms. Hopkins argue that the proportionately small
number of councils that have sacked principals with strong track
records argues against altering the balance of power.

The Chicago Tribune backed that view this spring in an
editorial comparing the administration's stance to going after "a
mosquito with a howitzer." Fewer than 10 of the more than 230 schools
where principals' contracts expired this year denied a new contract to
the incumbent, according to the Chicago school reform journal
Catalyst.

But Mr. Vallas argues that the problem is bigger than meets the
eye.

"In the last three years, I've had 29 such cases, where principals
of exceptional quality were dismissed," he said. In many other cases,
he contended, principals "really have to compromise themselves to
retain their jobs," or quit before they can be fired by unsupportive
councils.

Many of the parents, residents, and council members who spoke at the
district's recent hearing seconded that view, saying they had seen
principals hounded by council members with questionable motives.

"I've seen LSC members who had personal agendas, and I have seen
them destroy schools," said Sarvella Jackson, the former chairwoman of
a high school council.

Critics of the administration plan also point out that principals
rarely receive unsatisfactory ratings from district supervisors. Mr.
Vallas concedes that, but says the process will tighten up following
the districtwide adoption of a new system for evaluating
principals.

The system, which is being developed under the auspices of a local
business-backed group called Leadership for Quality Education, is being
designed for use both by district supervisors and councils.

John S. Ayers, the executive director of LQE, said the dispute over
the district proposal had "raised the stakes on doing evaluation
better."

"The political fight is interesting and important, but in the end,
what happens on the ground will probably be more influenced by this,"
he said of the new evaluation system.

Despite their disagreements, both sides in the ongoing debate agree
that the stakes are indeed high when the quality of leadership in the
system's hundreds of schools is at issue.

"If you have an ineffective principal at a school," Mr. Vallas said,
"you have a disaster on your hands."

Coverage of urban education is underwritten in
part by a grant from the George Gund Foundation.

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